People in this hardscrabble town, and all across the state of Michigan believe there's absolutely nothing Tom Izzo can't do. For a few shining moments Saturday night, he proved them right.

Michigan State 82, Connecticut 73 was the result of one evening of supreme effort by a team full of underdogs. But it was a lifetime in the making.

Izzo set the goal of reaching this Final Four before the first ball of the season hit the hardwood. On a dry-erase board in the Spartans locker room, he simply wrote, "Ford Field."

But 14 years ago, not long after he settled into mentor Jud Heathcote's office on the Michigan State campus in East Lansing, just 92 miles down the road, it was clear he had the kind of talent to get a team from almost anywhere to just about every Final Four.

Nine years after he won his first national title, Izzo gets the shot at a second Monday night, this time against North Carolina. No one ever got a longer, louder embrace than the one a city and state wrapped him up in almost from the moment the Spartans returned after beating Louisville last weekend to book their ticket to Detroit.

"I felt that the day we came here. I felt it at the hotel. I felt it driving to the practices. I felt it at practice. We had a pep rally yesterday, I felt it with all the people there," Izzo said. "But my favorite time today was driving to the game. You go by some tough homes, some tough places.

"I did make that the important part of this game. I always said, as a player, you've got a chance to be a difference-maker, a role model, a chance to make other people smile and fell good about you. We are the blue-collar team," he said finally. "This is the blue-collar city."

Two rows ahead sat Heathcote, whose Michigan State team climbed on Magic Johnson's back 30 years ago and won its only pre-Izzo title.

When the buzzer sounded, Heathcote barely moved, instead adjusting the glasses that had slipped down his nose so he could see the scoreboard for himself.

A row ahead of him, Lupe Izzo grabbed son Steven, whose middle name is Mateen - for Izzo's first big-time recruit, Mateen Cleaves - and made a beeline for the locker room.

Back inside the Spartans' locker room, before he let his kids join the celebration, Izzo had one final message.

"Don't not be happy," he said, "because you've accomplished something. But I don't want to read you feel like you accomplished the world.

"Because," he added, "we're going to do that Monday night."

Down the hallway, Johnson was posing for pictures with a handful of Detroit cops, telling them "It looks like everybody in Michigan is represented here tonight."

Izzo might need their energy and more to complete the mission he began as an undersized point guard at Iron Mountain High in the Upper Peninsula almost 40 years ago. Even more than his players, he looks like he's running on fumes.

"Tommy Izzo is one of my best friends. He's a future Hall of Fame coach," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. "He's probably going to win his second national championship on Monday. ...

"They played special. They have a cause. Anytime you have a cause," he concluded, "it's a great, great thing to rally people around."

And the coach Izzo faces is rooting for him, too.

Almost.

"Tom Izzo, it's impossible to have any more respect than I have for Tom and his staff," North Carolina coach Roy Williams.

"But I'm not going to be a Tom Izzo fan," he added, "on Monday night."